Thermal assist recording (TAR) has lately been developed as one of innovative technologies to respond to a need for higher recording density in magnetic disk drives. With the TAR system, a recording medium is locally heated during recording to thereby reduce coercivity of the medium and facilitate recording. The TAR system enables existing single pole write heads to perform recording on media having large coercivity than a recording magnetic field. If a medium has high coercivity, information recorded thereon will not be erased even when the medium is left to stand for a long period of time, so that the medium offers greater thermal stability and responds to the need for higher recording density.
As a prior art arrangement for a magnetic head slider and a suspension thereof relating to the TAR system, an arrangement has been developed as a near field generator in which a submount including a laser diode is mounted on a side surface of the slider. This arrangement includes: a waveguide WG formed between a single pole write head and a magnetoresistive read head as a magnetic head assembly; a near-field transducer disposed on a slider air bearing surface side of the waveguide; and a submount disposed on a side of the slider, the submount including a laser diode (LD) and the like. In this arrangement, the near-field transducer is heated by being irradiated with light generated from the LD and traveling along the waveguide, so that the medium can be locally heated.
Meanwhile, a suspension of a magnetic head slider according to a prior art includes, as disclosed in, for example, patent document 1, a load beam portion, a gimbal portion, and a load protuberance portion. In order to maintain balance between a load from the load beam portion pressing by way of the load protuberance portion and a lifting force and simultaneously achieve steady dynamic flying, the slider is capable of moving with three degrees of freedom in translation, pitch, and roll directions with the load protuberance portion as a pivot.
A magnetic head slider and a suspension thereof according to another prior art includes, as disclosed in, for example, patent document 2, a pivot position control mechanism disposed on one end of a load beam, the pivot position control mechanism including a pivot plate, a first piezo element, and a second piezo element. A pivot formed on the pivot plate abuts against a flexure and end portions of the pivot plate in a track direction and a seek direction respectively abut against end portions of the first and second piezo elements. The position of the pivot abutting against the flexure changes through contraction or expansion of the piezo element to thereby vary a pitch angle or a roll angle. The pivot is positioned at the center of the slider when the piezo element is inactive.